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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #417

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417. To this I will append the following account:

I saw in the spiritual world two flocks, one a flock of goats, and the other a flock of sheep. I wondered who they were, since I knew that animals seen in the spiritual world are not really animals, but are correspondent forms of the affections and consequent thoughts of the local inhabitants. Therefore I drew nearer, and as I approached, the likenesses of animals disappeared, and instead of them I saw people. It also became clear that those who formed the flock of goats were people who had confirmed themselves in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and that those who formed the flock of sheep were people who believed that charity and faith are inseparable, as goodness and truth are inseparable.

[2] I then spoke with those who had looked like goats, and I said, "Why are you gathered together like this?"

They were mostly clergy, who vaunted themselves on account of their reputation for learning, because they knew the arcana of justification by faith alone. They said they had assembled to convene a council, because they had heard that the saying of Paul in Romans 3:28, that "a person is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law," was not rightly understood, since by deeds of the law Paul meant the deeds prescribed by Mosaic law, which existed for Jews.

"We see this clearly," they said, "also from Paul's words to Peter, whom he rebuked for Judaizing, even though Peter knew that no one is justified by the works of the law (Galatians 2:14-16). Moreover, Paul distinguishes between the law of faith and the law of works, 1 and between Jews and gentiles, 2 or between circumcision and uncircumcision; 3 and by circumcision he means Judaism, as he does everywhere else. He also then concludes with these words: 'Do we then abolish the law by faith? Not at all. Rather we establish the law.' He says all of this in one series of verses, in Romans 3:27-31.

"In addition, he says as well in the preceding chapter, 'not the hearers of the law will be justified in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified' (Romans 2:13). Furthermore, that God will render to each one according to his deeds (Romans 2:6). And still further, 'We must all appear before the judgment seat of the Christ, that each one may give an account of the things done in the body..., whether good or evil' (2 Corinthians 5:10). Not to mention many other statements in Paul's writing, which make it apparent that Paul rejected faith apart from good works, just as much as James (James 2:17-26).

[3] "That Paul meant the deeds prescribed by Mosaic law, which existed for Jews - this we have further confirmed from the fact that all the statutes for the Jews in the books of Moses are called the Law, being thus works prescribed by the Law, which we see to be so from the following statements:

This is the law of the grain offering. (Leviticus 6:14ff.)

This is the law of the trespass offering... (Leviticus 7:1, 7)

This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings... (Leviticus 7:11ff.)

This is the law of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering and trespass offering, the consecrations, and the sacrifice of the peace offerings... (Leviticus 7:37)

This is the law regarding animals and birds... (Leviticus 11:46f.)

This is the law regarding her who gives birth, to a son or a daughter. (Leviticus 12:7)

This is the law regarding a leprous plague... (Leviticus 13:59, cf. 14:2, 14:32, 14:54, 14:57)

This is the law regarding one suffering a discharge of fluid... (Leviticus 15:32)

This is the law regarding jealousness... (Numbers 5:29-30)

This is the law for the Nazirite... (Numbers 6:13, 21)

This is the law (regarding cleanness). (Numbers 19:14)

This is... the law (regarding the red heifer). (Numbers 19:2)

(The law for a king.) (Deuteronomy 17:15-19)

"In fact," the speakers said, "the whole five books of Moses are called the Book of the Law, in Deuteronomy 31:9, 11-12, 26, and elsewhere."

To this they added also that they saw in Paul that the law in the Ten Commandments ought to be lived, and that it is fulfilled by charity, which is love for the neighbor (Romans 13:8-10), thus not by faith alone.

They said that this was why they had come together.

[4] In order not to disturb them, however, I withdrew, and at a distance then they looked again like goats, sometimes like ones lying down, and sometimes like ones standing, but turned away from the flock of sheep. They looked like goats lying down when they were deliberating, and like ones standing when they drew conclusions.

But I kept my eyes on their horns, and I was surprised to see that the horns on their foreheads appeared sometimes as though extending forward and upward, and sometimes curving back to the rear, and finally to be completely turned backward. At that they suddenly all turned then to face the flock of sheep, though they looked like goats.

I went over to them again, therefore, and asked what was happening now. They said they had concluded that faith alone produces the goods of charity called good works, as a tree produces fruit.

But then we heard a clap of thunder and saw a flash of lightning from above; and presently an angel appeared, standing between the two flocks, who cried out to the flock of sheep, "Do not listen to them! They have not abandoned their earlier faith, which teaches that God the Father took pity for the sake of the Son. That faith is not faith in the Lord. Nor is faith a tree. Rather a person is a tree. Only repent and turn to the Lord, and you will have faith. Before then faith is not faith having any life in it."

The goats with their horns turned backward then tried to approach the sheep, but the angel standing between them divided the sheep into two groups and said to those on the left, "Attach yourselves to the goats. But I tell you that a wolf is going to come that will carry them off, and you with them."

[5] However, after the two groups of sheep had been separated, and those on the left heard the angel's warning, they looked at each other and said, "Let's confer with our former comrades."

So then the group on the left addressed the one on the right, saying, "Why did you leave your pastors? Are not faith and charity inseparable, as a tree and its fruit are inseparable? For a tree continues on through the branch into the fruit. Take away anything from the branch that flows by an unbroken connection into the fruit, and will not the fruit perish? Ask our priests if that is not the case."

So then they asked, and the priests looked around at the rest, who winked to tell them to speak well. And after that they replied that such was the case. "Faith is preserved by its fruits," they said. But they would not say that faith is contained in the fruits.

[6] At that one of the priests among the sheep on the right rose and said, "They replied to you that such is the case, but still they tell their own flock that it is not the case, as they think otherwise."

The group on the right asked, therefore, how those priests think then. "Do they not teach as they think?"

"No," the priest replied. "They think that every good of charity that is called a good work, that a person does for his salvation or for the sake of eternal life, is not good but evil, because by the work the person is trying of himself to save himself, claiming for himself the righteousness and merit of Him who is the only Savior. And this is the case, they think, with every good work in which a person is conscious of his own will. Consequently among themselves they call good works done by a person of himself not blessings but curses, saying that they merit hell rather than heaven."

[7] However, those of the group on the left said, "You are telling lies about them. Do they not clearly in our presence preach charity and its works, which they call works of faith?"

But the priest replied, "You do not understand their preaching. Only a clergyman who is present pays attention and understands. They think only of moral charity and its civic and political goods, which they call goods of faith, but which are absolutely not. For an atheist can do the same things in the same way and give them the same appearance. Therefore they unanimously say that no one is saved by any works, but by faith alone.

"But let us illustrate this with analogies. They say that an apple tree produces apples; however, if a person does good deeds for his salvation, as the tree does apples by an unbroken connection, then the apples are rotten inside and full of worms. They say, too, that a grapevine produces grapes; but if a person were to produce spiritual goods as a grapevine does grapes, he would produce wild grapes."

[8] At that those of the group on the left asked in response, "What then is the nature of their goods of charity or good works, which are the fruits of faith?"

The priest replied that they are unseen, being within a person from the Holy Spirit, of which the person is totally unaware.

Responding, they said, "If a person is totally unaware of them, there must at least be some connection. Otherwise how can they be called works of faith? Perhaps those unfelt goods are then insinuated into the person's volitional works by some mediating influx, as by some affecting, influencing, inspiring, prodding or spurring of the will, by a silent perception in the thought and a resulting admonition, contrition, and thus conscience, and so by an impulse, an obedience to the Ten Commandments and the Word, either as a little child or as a wise adult, or by some other means like these."

But the priest replied, "No, they are not. Even if their proponents say that it comes about by such means because good works come about by faith, still they sew these up in their sermons with words whose result is to deny that they originate from faith. Some of them still teach such means, but as signs of faith, and not as its bonds with charity."

Some of those on the left nevertheless conceived of a connection by means of the Word, and they said, "Is there not thus a connection, that a person acts voluntarily in accord with the Word?"

But the priest replied, "That's not what they think. Rather they think it is formed simply by hearing the Word, thus not by understanding the Word, lest something enter perceptibly through the intellect into a person's thought and will. For they assert that everything in a person's volitional makeup is merit-seeking, and that in spiritual matters a person cannot undertake, will, think, understand, believe, do or cooperate in anything any more than a log.

"Still, however, the case is different with the influx of the Holy Spirit through faith into the discourses of preachers, because these are actions of the mouth and not actions of the body, and because by faith a person acts with God, but by charity with men."

[9] But when one of those on the left heard that a connection is formed simply by hearing the Word and not by understanding the Word, he said irately, "Is it then by an understanding of the Word gained from the Holy Spirit only, when a person in church turns away or sits as deaf as a post, or when he sleeps, or gained simply from some exhalation from the Word, the book? What could be more absurd?"

After that a man from the group on the right, who excelled the rest in judgment, asked to be heard, and speaking said, "I heard someone say, 'I have planted a vineyard. Now I will drink wine till I am drunk.' But someone else said, 'Will you drink wine from your glass with your right hand?' And the first one said, 'No. I will drink it from an unseen glass with an unseen hand.' So the second one said, 'Then you surely won't get drunk!'"

Then the same man said, "Only listen to me, please. I say to you, drink wine from the Word understood. Do you not know that the Lord embodies the Word? Does the Word not come from the Lord? Is He not therefore present in it? If then you do good in obedience to the Word, do you not do it from the Lord, in obedience to His utterance and will? And if you then look to the Lord, He Himself also will lead you and do the good, and do it through you, so that you do it as though of yourself. Who can say, if he does something for a king, in obedience to his utterance and will, 'I do this of myself, in compliance with my own utterance or command, by my own will?'"

Following that the priest turned to the clergy and said, "Ministers of God, do not lead the flock astray!"

[10] Hearing this, a large majority of the group on the left went back and joined the group on the right. Some of the clergy also then said, "We have heard something we have not heard before. We are pastors. We will not abandon the sheep." And they went back with them and said, "That man spoke a true word. Who can say, if he acts in obedience to the Word, thus from the Lord, in obedience to His utterance and will, 'I do this of myself'? Who says, if he does something for a king, in obedience to his utterance and will, 'I am doing this of myself'?

"We see now the Divine providence in why the conjunction of faith and works acknowledged by the ecclesiastical body has not been found. It could not be found, because it cannot be imparted; for that faith is not faith in the Lord who embodies the Word, and so is not a faith derived from the Word."

But the rest of the priests went away, and waving their caps they cried, "Faith alone, faith alone! It will yet survive!"

Footnotes:

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #207

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207. To this I will append two narrative accounts. Here is the first:

Some time later 1 I looked in the direction of the city Athenaeum, which I said something about in an earlier account, 2 and I heard an unusual clamor. In the clamor I heard an element of laughter, in the laughter an element of displeasure, and in the displeasure an element of sorrow. However, the clamor was not therefore inharmonious, but harmonious, because the elements did not mix with each other, but one was contained within another. (In the spiritual world, one distinctly perceives the variety and combination of affections in a sound.)

From a distance I asked, "What is the matter?"

They then said, "A messenger came from the place where newcomers from the Christian world first appear, saying he had heard from three of them there that in the world they had come from, they had believed like everyone else that the blessed and happy after death would have complete rest from their labors, and that since positions of responsibility, occupations and employments are labors, they would have rest from these.

"An emissary of ours has now brought these three here, and they are standing at the gate and waiting. A commotion broke out because of this, and after deliberating, the people have decided not to bring them into the Palladium on Parnassium hill, as they have done with visitors before, but to bring them into the great hall there, to disclose the news they have from the Christian world. Several delegates have been sent to formally usher them in."

[2] Since I was in the spirit - and since distances for spirits depend on the states of their affections, and I was then affected with a wish to see and hear these people - I found myself present there and saw them brought in and heard them speak.

The people in the hall who were older or wiser sat towards the sides, with the rest in the middle, and in front of them was a raised dais. In formal procession through the middle of the hall, some of the younger people conducted the three newcomers and the messenger to it. Then, after waiting for silence, one of the older ones there greeted them and asked, "What news do you have from earth?"

They said, "We have much that is new, but tell us, please, on what subject?"

So the older man replied, "What news do you have from earth regarding our world and heaven?"

They then answered, "When we first came into this world, we learned that here and in heaven there are positions of responsibility, ministries, occupations, business dealings, scholarly studies in every field of learning, and wonderful kinds of employment. Yet we had believed that upon our departure or passage from the natural world into this spiritual one, we would come into everlasting rest from our labors. What are occupations but labors?"

[3] To this the older man replied, "Did you think that eternal rest from labors meant eternal idleness, in which you would continually sit around or lie about, breathing in auras of delight with your breast and drinking in outpourings of joy with your mouth?"

Laughing gently at this, the three newcomers said that they had supposed something of the sort.

At that they then received this response: "What do joys and delights and thus happiness have in common with idleness? Idleness causes the mind to collapse rather than expand, or the person to become deader rather than more alive.

"Picture someone sitting around in a state of complete idleness, with hands hanging down, his eyes downcast or shut, and imagine that he is at the same time surrounded with an aura of rapture. Would drowsiness not seize both his head and his body, and the lively swelling of his face drop? With every fiber loosened, would he not finally begin to sway back and forth and eventually fall to the ground? What keeps the whole system of the body expanded and taut but an intentness of mind? And what produces an intentness of mind but responsibilities and employments, when these are undertaken with delight?

"So, then, I will tell you some news from heaven, that they have there positions of responsibility, ministries, higher and lower courts of law, and also trades and employments."

[4] When the three newcomers heard that in heaven they have higher and lower courts of law, they began to say, "What is the purpose of these? Are not all in heaven inspired and led by God, and do they not all therefore know what is just and right? What need is there then for judges?"

But the older man replied, "In this world we are instructed and taught what is good and true, also what is just and right, the same as in the natural world. Moreover, we learn these things not directly from God but indirectly through others. Every angel, too, like every man, thinks truth and does good as though of himself, and this is not pure but mixed in character, depending on the angel's state. In addition, among angels also, some are simple and some wise, and the wise have to make judgments when the simple ones among them, owing to their simpleness or ignorance, are uncertain about what is just or deviate from it.

"But," he said to them, "since you are still newcomers in this world, follow me into our city, if you wish, and we will show you all."

[5] So they left the hall, with some of the older people accompanying them as well. And they went first to a great library, which had been divided into a number of smaller collections according to subject fields.

The three newcomers were dumbfounded at seeing so many books, and they said, "You have books in this world too! Where do you get the parchment and paper? Where you get the pens and ink?"

The older men said in reply, "We perceive that you believed in the previous world that because this world is spiritual, it would be barren. Moreover, that you believed this because you harbored an idea of spiritual existence that was abstracted from a material one, and anything abstracted from material existence seemed to you to be nothing, consequently as something barren. Yet we have a full array of everything here. It is just that everything here is essential in nature rather than material, and material objects take their origin from essential ones. Those of us who live here are spiritual beings because we are essential beings rather than material ones. So it is that everything found in the material world exists here in its perfect form, even books and manuscripts, and many other things."

When the three newcomers heard the term essential used, they thought it must be so, both because they saw the books that had been written, and because they had heard it said that material objects have their origin from essential forms.

To convince them further with respect to this, the men took the newcomers down to the quarters of copyists who were making copies of drafts written by some of the wise people of the city; and when the newcomers looked at the manuscripts, they marveled at how neat and polished they were.

[6] After this they escorted the newcomers to professional academies, gymnasia and colleges, also to places where their scholarly forums were held, some of which they called forums of the Daughters of Heliconeum, some forums of the Daughters of Parnassium, some forums of the Daughters of Athenaeum, and some forums of the Muses of the Spring. 3 They said they gave them these names because daughters or maidens symbolize affections for various kinds of knowledge, and everyone's intelligence depends on his affection for various kinds of knowledge. The forums so called were spiritual exercises and debates.

Next they took the newcomers around the city to its directors and managers and their officials, and these in turn introduced them to marvelous works, which their craftsmen create in a spiritual manner.

[7] After the newcomers had seen these things, the older man spoke with them again concerning eternal rest from labors, into which the blessed and happy come after death.

"Eternal rest does not mean idleness," he said, "because idleness affects the mind and consequently the whole body with listlessness, lethargy, insensibility and slumber, and these are conditions of deadness, not life, much less the eternal life experienced by angels of heaven. Eternal rest, therefore, is rest that dispels these states and vitalizes a person, and this must be something which rouses the mind. Thus it is some pursuit or employment by which the mind is awakened, animated, and afforded delight, which in turn depends on some useful service for the sake of which, in which, and towards which it is working. So it is that the whole of heaven is viewed by the Lord as a world of useful service, and each angel is an angel according to the service he renders. The pleasure in being useful carries him along, like a boat in a favoring current, bringing him into a state of eternal peace and the rest that comes with peace. This is what is meant by eternal rest from labors.

"An angel's vitality depends on an application of his mind to some pursuit for the sake of being useful, and confirmation of this is clearly seen from the fact that they each possess conjugial love with its vigor, potency and delights in the measure that they are engaged in a pursuit of genuine use."

[8] When the three newcomers had been convinced that eternal rest does not mean idleness but the pleasure in some employment that is of use, some young women came with articles of needlework and sewing, works of their own hands, which they presented to them. Then, as these newly introduced spirits were departing, the young women sang a song whose angelic melody expressed an affection for employments of use and its accompanying satisfactions.

Footnotes:

1. I.e., some time after the occurrence related in no. 182.

2. See no. 182; also nos. 151[r]-154[r]

3. In reference to these names, cf., in previous accounts of this city, the topographical features mentioned in nos. 151[r]:1, 182:1, 2.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.